Art History, Boundary Crossing, Making Worlds

THIS SHORT ESSAY advocates boundary crossing as one direction for the future of Italian Renaissance art history, largely because it is an approach that emerges from engaging with phenomena that transgress traditional parameters of the field. These may be materials, formats, or people that cross geographical boundaries, unsettling familiar ground and inciting us to move in new directions. They may be global or transcultural things that challenge existing analytical frameworks. They may be practices or forms that refuse conventional historical periodization, categories, or terms of reference. As an approach, boundary crossing entails being receptive to unexpected forms of solicitation and to unpredictable paths and detours—to being open to what we do not know. That we learn from how the world looks back at us, as Michel de Montaigne observes above, has been demonstrated by the proliferation of studies and exhibitions on early modern art, global exchanges, and mobility that have provoked many of us to rethink familiar terrain. Since it is the case study that gives rise to